As I looked around, I realised this was the first time I had been back in a church since the terrorist attack in the Cape Town church. It brought back feelings, eerily similar to what I had experienced sitting in Cape Town, a sense of peace and joy, which back in 1993 was then, unfortunately, replaced by terror with the entrance of four terrorists...

This was just one of many seminal moments that has marked Dr Paul Anderson's life. It was a timely reminder of how, despite his job as a surgeon, with its accompanying aura of precision and infallibility, he too was human. He too had emotions. This realization helped guide his quest to help people in a way that set him apart as a man of compassion, understanding and empathy.

In Surgical Tales Paul's medical and surgical vocation is described with humour, insight and wonderment as he embarked on a career that took him from A & E in New Zealand, bariatric surgery in Adelaide, crash sites and mine explosions in Africa, indigenous nurse training in New Zealand, and setting up Specialists Without Borders. And through it all he has marvelled at a career that has steered him ever forward, but still with the same passion for life and all the people who he's met along the way. (Martin O'Connor)

Paul has previously written three medical drama thrillers; Does It Hurt to Die, Old Lovers Don't Die, and Let Him Die. The first of these books having made it as far as Hollywood and a screenplay. Paul has also written a romance novel Love Cuts Deeper than a Sharp Scalpel and a weight loss book. Fat Off-the right way. A clever and sustainable guide to healthy eating.